Sticks

Sticks for dogs are like chocolate for women before their monthly friend arrives. There’s nothing more satisfying than a good stick. A good solid hardwood’s best, something that’s matured in virgin rainforest for a few decades. Now that may offend the sensitivities of some Greenies, but this ain’t the Friends of the Earth web site so no apologies from me if you’re barking up the wrong tree.

For some reason sticks often get us into trouble. We can’t help that, when we get wood there’s only one thing on our mind. By that I mean chewing. Now we can’t help it if we can’t identify the nuances of sticks. To us a bit of tree is simply that. We don’t get why you humans honour something that’s purely there to pee against. We don’t see the need for your so-called chairs or chopping boards – you just over-complicate life. Wood is there to get your teeth into: rather like a good book on bones or, my personal favourite 101 things to do when your owner’s out.

I like to think I’m a bit of an authority on sticks so stick around and let me educate you.

Toddy’s Ten Commandments on sticks:

1. All wood is good. Except Ronnie Wood – he should know better. Now I know rockstars hang out with babes,
  but is that his wife or his granddaughter? This brings me nicely onto:
2. Sticks and (rolling?) stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me – well not as much as the time I
  got my tail caught in an elevator.
3. Sticks are never too big and you can never bite off more than you can chew, you just need to give it time.
4. Sticks are a valuable source of nutrition – numerous animals eat leaves – we just prefer to think big.
5. If humans fed us as often as they feed their faces we wouldn’t be driven to eating sticks or “table legs” as
  some precious house-proud owners call them.
6. Humans who don’t run around with you are stick in the muds. Ditch them the moment they let you off the leash
  and sniff out someone who’s not so fat.
7. Nothing sticks like your tongue on ice - trust me.
8. Always try to live in the sticks: makes life more interesting: there’s the futile yet compelling chasing of birds,
  and nothing as intoxicating as the sweet smell of rodent pee or the allure of fresh roadkill.
9. If a shoe is worth destroying, stick at it.
10. If it smells on-heat, stick it.

A word of caution: sadly only experience will help you avoid choosing dumb sticks, but to help you on your way if it’s outside the house it’s generally safe. This, however, is not the case if a human is leaning on it. These humans are fairly easy to identify by their grey fur and the stale smell of old food on their clothing. They sometimes smell of pee too, which may be attractive, but approach with caution, they’re often more feisty than their frailty suggests and are never inclined to let you have the stick. You can also get whacked, though not in the mafia sense: they’re usually quite law-abiding, they drive real slow, don’t move much at all in fact and are generally boring and won’t share their sticks so avoid them.

Like all things in life there is the exception to the rule: it’s always safe to take the stick if the person is blind. The security is lax - those dogs they have never put up a fight so go for it. The chaos it creates is priceless and well worth the minimal effort involved.